The LSU track program goes through a major shift each spring when the entire team switches from the indoor season to the outdoor season.
“Things get a lot harder,” said junior sprinter Kimberlyn Duncan. “You’re out here in the sun, you have to elongate your drive phase, and the races are just longer. The main thing is the heat, but hey, we’ve been out here – I don’t know how long. You get used to it.”
The Tigers and Lady Tigers have been released from the confines of the Carl Maddox Field House into the fresh air of the Bernie Moore Track Stadium with the No. 3 men’s program and No. 2 women’s program after finishing the indoor season at No. 5 and No. 3 respectively.
But the competition isn’t what worries the Tigers and Lady Tigers. The biggest opponent to LSU’s success is, in fact, Mother Nature.
“We’ve been to outdoor meets where it’s been sleeting before,” said LSU coach Dennis Shaver. “We’ve been to meets where it’s been 100 degrees, and we’ve been to meets where the wind’s blowing 30 to 40 miles per hour. You can’t really practice them. You just run into those conditions, and you have to adapt. The good thing is that it’s the same for everyone in the meet.”
Team practices leading up to the first official outdoor meet last week were marred by the torrential downpours Wednesday and Thursday.
“We literally didn’t get any work done because of the conditions we had during the week,” Shaver said. “It was good that we had the meet, and [the relay teams] saw some adjustments that needed to be made and so we’re working on that starting today.”
Many of the outdoor events are also much longer and more difficult in nature, even without weather conditions. Events such as the 60-meter dash or 60-meter hurdles will be stretched out to the 100-meter dash and the 100- and 400-meter hurdles.
“The training is still basically the same,” Shaver said. “It’s just that for the short sprinters and the hurdlers, obviously, were adding some distance to their races. It’s not a huge transition. The only difference is that you have to run a little bit different outdoors as opposed to running on a hydraulic track.”
The transition is made easier for athletes like Duncan and senior sprinter Barrett Nugent because they’ve been through the shift from indoor to outdoor multiple times during their collegiate careers.
Nugent said there isn’t much he tells the underclassmen in regards to the change except to find out what works best for them.
“Everybody is different,” Nugent said. “They have to get used to it their own way. It’s not easy. Just drink a lot of water and get ready for heat.”
 
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Contact Michael Gegenheimer at [email protected]